


Secrets

by sonictrowel



Series: Long Night in the Blue House [73]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 13:43:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11647731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonictrowel/pseuds/sonictrowel
Summary: The first time River called her young Doctor by his name, it was entirely by accident.  She couldn’t exactly be expected to think when he was doing things to her that rendered her completely senseless.





	Secrets

The first time River called her young Doctor by his name, it was entirely by accident.  She couldn’t exactly be expected to _think_ when he was doing things to her that rendered her completely senseless.  Writhing in the sheets and gasping out a litany of praise and encouragement and incoherent moans of pleasure while her fingers desperately gripped his hair, she didn’t realise what had happened until he suddenly froze.

“Buh?” she whinged, articulately, lifting her head from her pillow.

His wide eyes met hers over the slight swell of her stomach.

“Honey, what’s wrong?”

“You said my name,” he answered, so softly she could hardly hear him over her pulse racing in her ears.

“Oh,” she panted, wiping her hair off of her forehead.  “Yes.  Sorry, is that alright?”

He laughed briefly, looking dazed.  “No, I mean, yes, of course, it’s…”

River reached for him, curling her fingers around his shoulders and guiding him up to her face.

“I haven’t heard that in… I don’t know how long,” the Doctor said, while she stroked his cheek.

“Well, I’m the only one who knows it.  At least, outside of Gallifrey.”

“Even then, it’s not many.”

“I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No, I…” a smile spread over his face as he slowly shook his head.  “Of course you know.  You’re my wife.”

“I know lots of things no one else knows about you, Doctor,” she purred, leaning in to nip at his ear.  “In fact, I know quite a lot of things _you_ don’t know about you.”

“That sort of drives me mad,” he admitted.  “I want to know _you_ , River.  Even if I can’t keep you yet,” his voice wobbled and he nuzzled his nose into her temple, “just for now, while this lasts, I want to have all your secrets too.”

“Oh, sweetie,” she sighed, biting her lip.  In theory, it wouldn’t be any harder to seal off the memories if she told him more.  It had already been three months, and who knew how much longer they’d have, before she had to make him forget?  She didn’t like to think about it.  There was always a deadline with them.

But foreknowledge was a dangerous thing, and they were already playing with time in a fairly ridiculous way.

“You know _everything,_ River.  Everything about me, about us... I’m always in the dark.”

She hated hiding things from him.  It just didn’t come easily to her anymore.  It was so much better with them both just _knowing._  With them knowing each other, completely.

“Maybe just a peek,” she whispered.  

His eyes lit up with delight.  She never had a chance of resisting.

She nudged the Doctor’s shoulder to the side and he followed her lead, turning onto his back as she climbed over him.  His hands settled at her hips, thumbs brushing over her belly.

River raised an eyebrow in silent question as she hovered above him.  He smiled up at her, his expression soft and open, and guided her hips as she sank down onto him.

 _“Oh,”_ she sighed, her eyes fluttering shut in bliss.

His hands found hers, fingers lacing together.  She bent forward until she was pressed flush against his chest and their mouths met in an eager kiss.

“Won’t be able to do _this_ much longer,” she breathed against his lips.  “The belly really gets in the way.”

“I’m sure we’ll think of something,” he whispered, before capturing her mouth with his again.

She rolled her hips, a whimper of pleasure catching in her throat as the Doctor moaned softly.

Finally, she leaned her head gently against his and reached tentatively out with her mind.

What should she show him?  What was the most important?

All that business with her birth and the Silence… sure, they were some of her secrets, but what did it matter, anymore?  The mad circumstances beyond their control that set them on this tangled path, those weren’t her.  She was her own person now.  She owned her life.  She _chose_ it, in spite of every conspiracy to take her choices from her.  She chose _them._  That’s what she wanted him to see.  The difficult, painful, beautiful, happy life they both chose to share—  that part, he deserved to know.

Maybe she’d start with the first night of their first honeymoon, under the brilliant white light of a billion, billion stars, with the sea air whispering over their bare skin and his warm hands holding her close, his hair flopping over his flushed face, eyes shining with love and wonder as he called her “wife.”

Then, the night he showed up with a bouquet of her favourite Ionian ranunculus, took her out dancing until they were both delirious with laughter and exhaustion, and finally whispered his name in her ear for the first time as he laid her down on their bed.

Ice-dancing (however poorly) to Stevie Wonder on the Thames, her heart so full and his eyes bright as he looked at her like she was the only person in his entire universe.

Narrowly escaping becoming human(oid) sacrifices on their way to dinner, only to wind up staying in anyway, stripping each other out of their wet clothes in front of the hearth.

She didn’t want to show him her agony as she watched him drift away from her, slowly losing the deep trust they’d shared, keeping her at arm’s length.  Or the fateful day when he was properly her husband again, thrilled to see her and totally besotted, and she found that that was even more terrifying.  When he healed her wrist, and she saw so plainly how much he loved her, and she lashed out because all she could think was that she was seeing how much she was going to lose.  When they lost her parents and he asked her to stay, but her heart was too shattered to hold all of his pain too.  

But that was the truth.  He wanted to know it all.

She _did_ want him to see the moment she realised he was right there beside her, the same satisfied smirk on his new, older face, a depth of feeling in his eyes she was instantly ashamed to ever have doubted.  

The sunset they watched together while the towers sang, and his whispered promise of twenty-four years.  The unflinching honesty they learned to share as they soothed ancient hurts and learned new, precious secrets.  All the quiet, intimate, blissful moments of their real life together, like they were always meant to be.

Their years with Milly, before they even knew they were a family.  The wonderful, terrifying joy of the day they found out they were expecting Athena.  Her first brilliant, squealing cry.  When he held them with tears streaming down his face; because it was the beginning this time, not the end.  

And the end that did finally come, with his determined promises that it wouldn’t be forever.  Their girls leaving and her heart being torn in two, his desperate kiss and his softly spoken goodbye…

Collapsing in her front garden, alone, her entire world in pieces, only to find _him_ puttering about in her bloody kitchen, making tea.

“Oh,” the Doctor croaked, his eyes full of tears.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her lips brushing his, “is it too much?”

He let out a shaky breath, slipping his hands out of hers to wrap his arms around her.

“I never want to leave you but I’m always doing it,” he said, his face tucked into her neck and his hips pushing up into hers with renewed need, the shared desperation to be _closer_ surging through their merged minds.

Oh, her poor, sweet, wonderful Doctor.  So much pain was still ahead of him.  Not only their mixed-up lives, but all the years he lived with thinking he’d destroyed his people.  She couldn’t spare him any of it.  It was so unfair.

“I’m so sorry, my love.”  She kissed him, urgent and deep, pouring all of her adoration into his mind.  They picked up their pace in unison, hearts pounding and breath coming fast between fervent kisses, pushing closer, closer, closer.

“You were right,” he gasped.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” she teased breathlessly.

The Doctor pressed his lips to her cheek and his arms tightened around her.  “So worth it.”

A laughing sob tore from River’s throat as she grinned through her tears.  

___

After a ridiculously indulgent seven or so months holidaying round the universe, and, thanks to the TARDIS’s protectiveness of her granddaughters, getting into only the very tamest of intergalactic skirmishes along the way—

_“Where the hell were you keeping that gun?!” the Doctor sputtered after she took out an entire mischief of cybermats that had infested the plumbing of a spa on Midnight._

_“Oh, sweetie,” she sighed, petting his shoulder.  “You’ll learn to stop asking me that.”_

— they decided to move into 107 Baker Street and get set up for Milly’s arrival.

“Need to pick a date when I won’t be dropping by,” the Doctor murmured as he leaned over the console.  “And when I don’t have anyone else living in there… late 1890s looks good, I’ll just have left.  Is that too early for you?”

“Late 1890s London?  Really?”

“Yes?” he said, meeting River’s eyes over the console.  “Or would you rather we skip ahead to when they’ve got those… self-rocking sleeper thingies and whatnot.”

“What, and miss out on having three babysitters in town?  Well… two.  Strax might call himself a medical professional, but I’m not entirely convinced he can tell the difference between a baby and a tea kettle.  Potatoes, they’re not too bright.”

“Sorry… _what?”_

And so it was that River knocked on the door of 13 Paternoster Row, to make her once-and-future husband yet another anachronistic acquaintance or three.  At some point, she just had to lean into the madness and trust that it was all destined.

“Professor Song!” Jenny gasped, looking for all the world like she was seeing a ghost.

“Jenny,” River greeted her warmly, but with a look in her eye that commanded attention and compliance.  “Be a dear and do _not_ tell me or my companion here how surprised you may be to see me or why.”

 _“Companion?”_ the Doctor whispered indignantly, just behind her.

“Uh, right you are, ma’am.  Professor.”

“Dr. Song will do; I’m not teaching these days.  Or just River, though I know it’s no use trying to convince you of that.”

Jenny smiled at that, apparently recovering from her surprise.  Obviously she’d seen stranger things in her day-to-day than a woman who was probably supposed to be dead in her chronology but was instead alive and conspicuously pregnant.

“And this… well, this is the Doctor.”

“Hello!” he said cheerfully, wrapping one arm around River’s back and extending his hand to Jenny, clearly pleased to have been upgraded from ‘companion’ to his rightful place in the conversation.  “Pleased to meet you— Jenny, was it?”

Jenny was back to the gaping.  “Doctor!  Goodness, you’ve regenerated again?”

“Less ‘again’ and more ‘not yet,’” River said, holding Jenny’s gaze meaningfully.  “Several ‘not yet’s, in fact.”

“Oh, I see,” Jenny said, wide-eyed.

“Is the Mrs. home?”

“Oh!” Jenny blinked out of her surprised stupor again.  “Sorry ma’am, I’m standin’ here like a statue.  Please come in.  I’ll show you to the parlour.”

“Thank you, dear,” River said, placing a hand on Jenny’s arm with a fond smile.  She always did take whatever madness they brought to her doorstep well in stride.

“Who is that, boy?” an unmistakably Potatolike grumbling could be heard in the hall as they entered.  “It sounds like the one with the…” Strax emerged from around a corner and paused, squinting.

“Oh, no, I thought it was the big head.  But this one’s got the head _and_ a big—”

“—sentence you won’t finish if you don’t want to be made into chips,” River cut in, flashing a smile with too much teeth that was almost certainly lost on Strax, since he could barely recognise humanoids at all.

“...Have you got a Sontaran _butler?!”_ the Doctor sputtered, fascinated.

“I am a _nurse,_ sir,” Strax replied through gritted teeth.  

He burst into incredulous laughter.  “A Sontaran _nurse!_  Well now I’ve seen everything.”

“Oh, trust me, you haven’t,” River said under her breath, glancing briefly at the Doctor and sharing his infectious smile.

“I serve a penance to restore the honour of my clone batch,” Strax growled.

“And how’d that happen?” the Doctor asked, intrigued and oblivious to the looks now being shot at him by both River and Jenny.

 _“The Doctor,”_ Strax replied darkly.

“Oh.  Well.  Um, awkward,” he mumbled, looking to River with a grimace that clearly said _‘I didn’t know!’_

She rolled her eyes, sighing quietly.

“Jenny, have we got company?” Vastra called as she entered the parlour.  She slowed to a stop, her sharp eyes widening as they landed on River’s face, and then on her stomach.  

“Dr. Song,” she said, in a slightly calmer but no less shocked tone than Jenny had used.

“And the Doctor,” Jenny added, glancing meaningfully between him and Vastra.

 _“Is_ he?” she asked, meeting River’s gaze again.

“So good to see you, Vastra,” River said, stepping forward to embrace her.  “It’s alright, he knows he’s young.  We’re, doing things a bit, ah… well, I don’t need to bother explaining ‘unconventional’ to you.”

Vastra laughed.  “No, indeed not.  In that case,” she said, removing a black satin glove and extending her hand, “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Doctor.”

“Likewise,” he replied, grasping her hand.  “I must say, you’re the first Silurian Lady I’ve met in Victorian London.”

“And the last, I should think.  Please, have a seat,” she said, glancing at River’s belly again.  “It would appear that congratulations are in order?”

“Thank you,” River said, sitting beside the Doctor on the settee.  “We’re actually going to be settling down for a little while across town.  The Doctor has a house on Baker street.”

“Oh, yes, I think he mentioned,” she said.  “Or, I suppose, he will have done.  Well, that certainly is unexpected and pleasant news.”

 _“Is_ this the one with the big head?” Strax interjected, squinting at River again.  “The shape is all wrong.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, Strax, she’s pregnant,” Jenny sighed.  “I’ll go and fetch the tea, ma’am.”  She bobbed a slight curtsy and exited the room.

“Well,” Vastra said, taking a seat opposite them, “I suppose you have quite a tale to share, Dr. Song.”  Her lips curled into a smile, her keen eyes regarding them both, always seeming to observe more than she should logically be able to see.

River smiled, slipping her hand into the Doctor’s.  “Oh, you know how it is.  Doing things in the right order would just be dull, wouldn’t it?”

“Terribly,” the Doctor said, squeezing her fingers.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for sticking with me and for your wonderful comments! <3


End file.
